NEW ORLEANS — I might be old-fashioned, but the art of Job Saving has gone downhill.

This is how you stay employed?

Nothing against the newspaper business, but I need to get me one of those NFL head coaching or general managing positions.

Where else can a coach lose his first eight games of the season, lose four of the last five, including a 42-17 shredding at the hands and arm of Drew Brees in the finale, 468 yards of senseless slaughter, and save his job?

Where else can 4-12 fly on eagle's wings? And where else can a general manager be five years in, be 28-52, and still be wondering why people could think, even for a moment, that he's not doing a good job?

How dare we wonder about Greg Schiano and Mark Dominik's jobs. We've got some nerve.

The 2013 Tampa Bay Buccaneers season, The Thing That Wouldn't Leave, finally left Sunday. Now we can get on with watching real football, the NFL playoffs, the college bowls, etc.

And to think I missed Bears-Packers on Sunday …

Who will follow the Bucs if this regime returns? I bet there's a waiting list of Bucs fans poised to not renew their season tickets.

Last week, I read that the circus comes to town today. You know, the Ringling Bros. deal, with the elephants' annual “Pachyderm Parade” through Tampa streets on the way to the arena.

I've got news for you:

The circus has been here the whole time. The elephant is already in the room, it's name is Bobo and now he's got 4-12 painted on both his sides.

For good measure, to the faint sound of the calliope, the head coach tried an “exotic formation” in the first half Sunday, passing up a field goal try for a pass on fourth-and-10 ... by the punter. Michael Koenen, the rifleman from Ferndale, Wash., threw incomplete.

“In retrospect, I probably would like to have it back,” Schiano said.

He also reiterated what he's thought he'd made clear:

“I, or anyone connected with me, has had no contact with Penn State. I said it Wednesday and I'll say it again: The job I have is the one I want.”

I bet they're dancing in the streets of State College.

The Bucs were on the road to nowhere this season. They had more than their share of obstacles, some of them their fault, some of them not. In the end, it added up to four wins. You don't even need one whole hand of one whole Glazer to do the math.

Schiano was asked about that.

“Well, I'm not satisfied with four (wins),” he said. “That's an accurate statement. That's not my decision, how many is enough.”

No, that's up to the Glazer Family, the Von Trapped Children. Will they do the impossible and bring Schiano and Dominik back and sell it to fans? They might just try it. They'd be working without a net from there out.

The Glazers are secretive. We have no idea if they vote, or, if they do, exactly how, like if they wear shrouds or go outdoors and face toward the moon gods. I assume any paper ballots would be burned. They'll need an awful big furnace to erase all remnants of 2013.

We are living history, kids, truly bad Bucs history.

With Sunday's loss, the lads have now lost at least 12 games in three of the last five seasons. It's not quite as wretched as 1983-86, when the Bucs dropped 14 games in the three of four seasons.

We don't count the 1976-77 0-26 teams, because that was expansion.

This was implosion.

Will there fewer Buccaneer Men by nightfall?

Put the Ringling elephants back on the train. Circus we got.

Whatever happened to saving your job with a 12-4 season instead of 4-12?